Mesoscopic numerical simulation of stratified rock failure using digital image processing

Abstract

This paper presents a digital image processing (DIP) based finite difference method (FDM) and makes the first attempt to apply the new method to the failure process of stratified rocks from Chinese Jinping underground carves. In the method, the two-dimensional (2D) inhomogeneity and mesostructures of rock materials are first identified with the DIP technique. And then the binarization image information is used to generate the finite difference grids. Finally, the failure process of stratified rock samples under uniaxial compression condition is simulated by using the FDM. In the DIP, an image segmentation algorithm based on seeded region growing (SRG) is proposed, instead of the traditional threshold value method. And with the new method, we can fully acquire the inhomogeneous distributions and mesostructures of stratified rocks. The simulated macroscopic mechanical behaviors are in good agreement with the laboratory experimental observation. Numerical results show that the proposed DIP based FDM is suitable for the failure analysis of stratified rocks because it can fully take into account the material heterogeneity, and the anisotropy of stratified rocks is also disposed to some extent.